NOLA radfem blog

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

We are working so hard to normalize sexism as something that is an innate part of masculinity and I’m just not quite sure why. If we can imagine that it’s possible for people not to murder one another or imagine that there be an end to war or child abuse or whatever other kinds of behaviour we’ve agreed, as a society, is unacceptable, or, at least, undesirable, why are we so avidly working to preserve sexism?

Why are we so unwilling to see porn or strip clubs or prostitution as something invented by a society that is not egalitarian? Just because you get an erection when you see a woman being objectified onscreen doesn’t mean women deserve to be objectified. And I don’t say that because I have a hate-on for erections, or masturbation, or penises, or even sex (though some women hate all those things and that’s perfectly fine). But because I can separate men from misogyny. I don’t believe that your erection is dependent on my subordination.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

This is what has happened to me as a result of being around violence as a child as well as as an adult. I have P.T.S.D. I stay very stressed. It is hard for me to relax.

When a person has been exposed to certain kinds of stressful situations, such as ongoing family violence, the amygdala may become overreactive. When this occurs, the body's alarm systems react more quickly and more energetically to threats than they do in normally reactive people. This neural phenomenon has been documented in soldiers who show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

A champion Italian Goddess sworn to protect her people against the aggression of masculine faith and its persecutors during the reign of medieval terror. The original Aradia was a female Christ figures in Italy who taught around 1353. She was imprisoned more than once, escaped several times and eventually disappeared.

This is the story of Aradia is the daughter of Diana and Lucifer God of the Sun. (Not the christian god of hell aka called Satan). She is considered the Italian Queen of the Witches. Aradia is an extremely powerful entity and a protectress of Witches in general.

The story I would like to tell her is the story of Aradia the daughter of Diane and Lucifer. The Queen of the Witches. *The Story Of Aradia* Goddess Diana used magick to charm Lucifer. He was a bit afraid of her, most likely because she was a Moon Goddess, and very dark next to his light. Of this union, Aradia was born. Diana liked using magick, and wanted to develop her magickal strengths further, so she decided to go to Earth and do this. She disguised herself as a mortal woman and went to Earth. On Earth, Diana found that times were hard and the people were oppressed. She decided to teach the people magick, so that they were more easily able to care for themselves, and to protect themselves from their oppressors. Diana became a Witch, and she taught many people her craft. After a long while, Diana had no choice but to reveal herself as a Goddess. After doing this, Diana realized she must return to the heavens, and so she did. Diana knew there was more teaching to be done with the mortals, so she decided to send her daughter, Aradia, to Earth. Aradia was to take over where her mother had left off. Aradia was sent to Earth with instructions from Diana to be carried out. Aradia was instructed to teach the mortals aggressive magick, in order to help themselves from their horrific oppression. Aradia taught them well, as she was a strong and powerful Goddess. For the gifts of magick she gave so many, Aradia is considered "Queen of the Witches.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Some have helped bring this nineteenth-century dissent up to date on the basis of a critical scientific analysis of the evolution of the capitalist system, (Paul Sweezy, Howard Parsons, David Harvey, John Bellamy Foster, et al.).

What You Didn't Know About the South: Surprises from a White Southerner

“The South” is an idea too often wrapped in a fog that emanates from the left as well as the right.

Yesterday I read an article by Peter Birkenhead, a Californian, who recently visited Louisiana and found “The South” a benighted land dominated by misty-eyed racists in denial of their slave history (See " Why the White South Is Still in Denial About Slavery"). His experience at a slave cabin-turned restaurant leaves him outraged and ready to send back his gumbo, never to return to Dixie.

I know the feeling. The South is my birthplace, and there are times when I'd like to cast it off, too. But my southern drawl and my heritage come along with me wherever I go. So we've had to come to terms with each other, despite an adulthood spent in New York.

I can't deny that in many places in the South, rebel flag-wavers abound, prejudices survive, and memory dissolves into myth. This is a pathology that must be confronted at every opportunity. But travelers have a way of taking a small slice of a place and creating a monolith, and Birkenhead’s account –despite its insights—leaves room for illumination and for recognition of the complexities that make this region of the country –and the history of slavery -- a challenging object of study.

As a white southerner, details of my own history challenge what most of my northern friends envision when they think of “The South,” an idea too often wrapped in a fog that emanates from the left as well as the right.

Ron Paul lives in some sort of alternative universe. He's dead wrong on sexual harassment. Sexual harassment creates a workplace that's bad for everyone. Sexual harassment has been a tool, a weapon, so to speak, of keeping women down in the workplace. The sexual harassment segment begins at around 5:33...but his response on Aids and health insurance is astounding as well begins around 3:12

She announced out of the clear blue on her own page, pulling from a conversation elsewhere on Facebook, that I call my kid a possible "sociopath like her father" and a "sadist," then let her friends take their shots at me, one even saying, "That woman does not deserve the title of 'mother'" and another saying the poor pitiful teenager is just misunderstood.

This is a kid who saw another woman in her father's lap when she was five, told on him, and still tells new people from time to time that it was her fault her parents' marriage ended up so rocky because she is the one who told. In her own life, however, she considers herself a "playa" and makes sure to play with boys' hearts and break them before they can break hers. She laughs at other people's pain. She laughs when people beg for their lives in scary movies and laughs more when they die bloody and horrific deaths. She beat me with my own cane. She calls me "bitch" and "cunt," just like her father. She is cold and cares about nothing and no one other than her own materialistic desires. Oh, and playing with boys' hearts and sleeping around. And hating me.

So, here was the response my sister didn't have the guts to let HER readers read:

This angel of mine, whom I adore and considered an angel right up until she did it, beat me over the head last year with my own cane while I was ill. Up until then, she had been caught skipping out in the middle of the night -treated only lovingly and talked to. She had been caught sneaking alcohol - still my darling angel and she was lovingly talked to. Then, the day she beat me with my own cane, even then, she was my angel. When her father called the police and the local small town police chief was fingering his handcuffs, saying he had a daughter her age and that if she had hit HIS wife, he would have beaten her ass and then let the other cops have her, all eyes were on me, as the victim. I chose not to let them take her away. When she was little and something was wrong and she could not sit still to learn, I and I alone saved her e ducation by calling around, finding a private school that could best cater to her learning style. I found she could not sit still to read, so I took her out in search of every hands on experience there was - combing the local paper for free things, even making it through a guided tour of the local vet school and managing not to pass out while she put her hands in cow guts. When she got to public school, I insisted on testing and then got the private testing to get her 504 diagnosis - auditory processing disorder - and went to all the 504 meetings, followed up on all of the accommodations she was supposed to get every year, checked homework online every day. I even discovered her best learning style was to keep moving, so all the way to high school, I made flash cards of her test information, then drilled her during walks through the neighborhood, studying in motion as the ancient Greeks did.

I did it all. I was super mom.

Eventually, however, her FATHER'S ABUSE of me took its toll. I began to suffer from PTSD. He is a sadist and a sociopath. He raped me repeatedly. He molested or attempted to molest three teen girls. He disrespected me in front of our daughter and called me "bitch" and "cunt" in front of her. He put his hands around my neck during sex, gave me inhalants because I would not sleep with him after finding out about his thing for teenage girls. He wrapped a belt tightly around my neck. He put plastic bags over my head during sex more times than I can count. He also got me drunk and had five men have sex with me while he videotaped it. I never agreed, never met these men. Felt a hot warmth on me and realized while I was being brutalized, he was shining a bright camera light on me. He still quite enjoys this videotape, so I am told.

A few weeks after I escaped, I brought my daughter to live with me, but, as much of the educational literature on domestic abuse suggests is typical acting out for children of such families (you DID READ educational literature on children of abuse before commenting on my parenting, DIDN'T YOU???), she blames the abused mother for being weak, for being beaten and broken and having no fight. Once I got some spunk back, she was in no mood to take orders, fifteen or not. I brought her to live someplace new. I did everything to try to please - bus money from my housemates to get around D.C., a keyboard for her new piano class, a new room painted purple. Nothing for myself, all for her. But, for financial reasons, we had to leave D.C. and move to another tiny town. She purposely flunked out of school as a way of demanding going back to Louisiana - and I agreed she could live with her PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER, as I do not trust her father with teenage girls. But they did a bait and switch. He took her and kept her, and I have no money to fight it. My daughter lives with an abuser, calls me a "mother-fucking bitch" and a "cunt." She refuses my phone calls. She is interested in all the wrong things, not the kind of person I worked at raising at all, taking her to political rallies and Sunday school and social justice events and teaching her to care about others above self. None of it stuck. And, yes, I AM afraid she is turning out to be like her father. She has no feelings about whom she hurts. None. She grew up with an abuser and she has an abuser's mentality. Don't think that admission comes lightly from me. It is pure agony, a mother's heart cracked in half and bleeding all over the damn place.

My facebook page is assuredly not a public forum. Only friends can see what I write. I am not Facebook friend with Sarah. Furthermore, I have my friends list carefully broken down into sub-groups. I choose a group for every SINGLE post I make. For instance, "political" is reserved for posts of a political nature. If I am not SURE of an old friend's politics, I keep my political stuff hidden and available only to the like-minded activists in my group. "Trusted" is a tiny group of family and close friends. Only they can read the really personal stuff. Those of you in the group read things and think that because you can see it, one hundred others in my friends' list can as well. This is not so. Only about a dozen of you can. Don't make assumptions about "public availability," Miriam and Rachelle, because YOU are able to read something. You may be among just ten people who can see it.

There. Now, those of you passersby who felt entitled to cat-call the clothesline on my sister's page at least know ALL OF THE DIRTY LAUNDRY. You are much like my daughter, it occurs to me, full of fury at me without knowing that I am the victim of abuse at the hands of her father, without knowing what it is like to have your husband hold your legs back for five men to use and abuse you while he videotapes, without knowing what it is like to have her father hold plastic grocery bags over your face while he gets off on suffocation games, to learn he has attempted to molest two teenagers you dearly love plus another you don't know so well, to be held hostage to his cheating while he does whatever he wants and refuses to fix your car and keeps you hostage in your home in the country for two solid years, to be so weak from it that you can no longer walk and have your ANGEL, you thought, your sweet baby grab your cane and beat you with it.

There is my blood for your entertainment, nosy nellies. Enjoy. Now you can judge but at least do so with some fucking information at your fingertips.

That feels oddly like a coming out of sorts. That is the most about my life I have ever published...you know, my hidden life, my real life, my abuse.

And she deleted it and let people continue to call me an "idiot." I ended up cutting myself last night, for the first time since the new meds. I wonder if they would feel proud if they knew. Apparently that is what they wanted - to be judge and jury. I think it makes people feel superior. It's why people watch Jerry Springer. And heaven knows, my estranged husband did all he could to turn us into a Springer family.

My sister put on her facebook page a complaint about some things I said about my daughter, saying no wonder the kid hates me.

Her friends piled on, began calling me a bad mother.

I responded, explaining in detail about the abuse, that my concern about my daughter is that, since she has been raised around abuse, she IS turning out to be a sadist and possibly with an abuser's mentality. She beat me with my own cane last year. She calls me "bitch" and "cunt." I went into detail and said that, if they wanted to opine, at least NOW they could see my blood on the sidewalk and opine in informed ways.

My sister's initial complaint had been saying things in a public forum, on FB. So she deleted my comment, which I respect. Her friends, however, continued piling on, one even saying, "The problem with debating idiots is that they can pull out life experiences and beat you at it." I politely asked my sister to remove that post, saying, "I respect your wishes if you don't want my long comment on your wall. However, if I am not permitted to defend myself, please do not permit strangers to call your sister an idiot. Please remove the criticism of me." She refused, saying I deserved it.

I have defriended her online and de-sistered her in real life. I would not permit anyone to call her names or to criticize her, even if I disagreed with her, because THAT is my SISTER. I am stunned that she does not feel the same way.

I wonder if it is the alcohol talking.

Either way, she is currently dead to me. I would NEVER let anyone speak about her the way she let those people speak about me. All she had to do was delete their criticism of me, the exact same way she deleted my defense of myself.

I am so fucking tired of how my estranged husband can make people think I am the crazy one. HE IS the abuser. He is the one who did sick shit to me. Yet, sociopath that he is, he comes across as calm and charming and, victim of a sociopath that I am, I come off sometimes as off-balance. Then, if I explain in any detail what he did to me, people don't want to know. They don't want details of abuse. They can't handle it. They want to silence me, which is fine - I don't actually have a NEED to trash him, but I don't like being treated like the crazy lady either. I am tired of this shit. Tired, tired, tired, tired, tired. Worst day I have had since I started the new meds over a month ago. First REAL *fall* since I have been on it. It helps so much. I thought I was all set, that this would not happen again. Apparently, I was wrong.

Friday, September 3, 2010

A scene of a party. A pale blond woman in her 20s stands talking to two men, one pale and one with darker skin. She wears a black top and sparkly blue skirt, and all parties hold drinks in their hands and appear to be having a good time.

Man One: (looks at woman, sucks in air between his teeth) Check out the skirt! She’s asking for it.

Man Two: (laughs)

Cut to scene of the same woman in a department store. She pulls two skirts off the rack, one the sparkly blue skirt she wears at the party, and takes turns holding up each one to her hips. A sales assistant, a pale middle-aged woman, walks up to her.

Sales Assistant: Can I help?

Woman: Yeah, thanks. I’m going out tonight and I want to get raped. (smiles) I need a skirt that will encourage a guy to have sex with me against my will. (holds up each skirt again)

When it comes to popular messages about sexual violence, many of us are treated to a (un)healthy dose of fear – in the guise of awareness and self-protection. You know the drill: don’t walk alone; don’t drink too much; avoid certain streets; be wary of strangers. . . the list goes on. One of the troubling things about these messages is the way they imply that one just needs street smarts and savvy to prevent sexual assault. (Another problematic aspect of these messages is the way they shift attention away from the fact that the majority of assaults are perpetrated by a victim’s acquaintance, friend, or partner; these ubiquitous stay-safe tips don’t mean much when it comes to people you already believe you should trust. Then there’s the fact that plenty of folks don’t have the option of not, say, commuting to and from work late at night or avoiding areas where they might be vulnerable to crime.) Moreover, the notion that we can reliably prevent being assaulted dovetails neatly with victim-blaming after the fact: “she/he really shouldn’t gone out there without a friend”; “it probably wouldn’t have happened if she/he hadn’t been drinking to excess”; “what was she/he thinking, going to a party in that neighborhood”

Sharron Angle, the Nebraska Nevada Republican Senate candidate who recently made headlines when a radio interview was unearthed in which she opposed legal abortion even in case of rape/incest because "God has a plan" (and your assault is part of it), has caught media attention again for her advice to 13-year-old incest victims to just make lemons into lemonade.

The Huffington Post reports that, during an interview on the conservative Alan Stock Show, Angle was asked what she would say to a 13-year-old incest victim who became pregnant by her father's rape. Angle's response? She says she counsels teenagers facing "very at risk, difficult pregnancies" to just look about for alternatives, and when they do, "they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade."

I don't think "lemon situation" accurately describes the unfathomable situation of a young girl who has been raped and impregnated by her own father — a situation that would be made even worse if Angle had her way and the girl was subjected by law to forced pregnancy. Angle's flippant, clichéd comparison shows how out-of-touch she is. You can survive a traumatic situation, move on with your life, but that doesn't make child rape a "lemons into lemonade" situation. There is no "upside" to being raped as a child, especially by your own father.

We have recently moved to a big city. My sixteen year old daughter is afraid of taking public transportation, which I had THOUGHT would be so liberating for her after four years stuck in a tiny town, because of the way men treat her on the street.

And it is a big deal, it’s a big thing. Don’t minimize it. What, are we just supposed to accept that we have breasts and asses for the purpose of immature men to ogle at and touch without asking? Is that supposed to be something that’s just ‘okay’ with us because ‘that’s the way it is’? Fuck no. I’m not asking the moon and stars here.

For years, I have struggled in a bad marriage, trying to stick it out because I believed morality and ethics required it. Even if he never stuck to HIS vows, I felt obliged to stick to mine. This piece is quite liberating for me.

An obligation, rather than a choice. Who you spend the majority of your time with, who you are legally bound to, who it is very difficult and time-consuming and stressful for you to become un-bound to, is an obligation. You HAVE to stay in it, because it’s fucking difficult to get out. Marriage is something like a tarpit, but when you want to escape, society bands around you, holding sticks and pushing your head back under. You’re a FAILURE if you want to get out of a marriage. You FAILED the system, dude. You got MARRIED, remember? Ever after? ‘Til death do us part’? Those were YOUR words, you chose (haha) to say them. NO TAKE-BACKS. Sorry! What, you want to change your mind? That ain’t allowed! You’re OBLIGED now, muthafucker! We got you GOOD! Hey, we had someone recording the whole thing! And you signed! With your own hands! We got a signature, and a photo of you making it, and you look pretttty fucking happy about the whole thing. Who spends a year planning something they’re just gonna back out of a few years later? A LOSER that’s who. Do you want to be a loser? Nah…didn’t think so…get back in your tarpit and we’ll speak of this to no more.

These are all fairly minor events but they each illustrate this assumption that men believe it is okay for them to touch a woman, to grip her hands, to pressure her into going with them to wherever they want to go. This sort of mentality, that of control, is the first step, the beginnings of the idea that men should be able to tell women what to do, they should be allowed sex, they should have access to women’s bodies whenever they want.

Instant Giggle Video Pick-Me-Ups - Kids are Funny

"Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself."--- Jorge Luis Borges, (autobiographical essay, 1970).

COMMENTS POLICY

click here for my full comments policy:Here's the short version. This blog is strictly anti-porn, anti-trafficking, anti- any and all forms of dominance and hierarchy. I won't publish any pro-porn comments. I've lived that life, and I'm done with it; my significant other is in treatment for sexual addiction. I used to make all of the same pro-porn arguments. Now I've changed my mind because I've learned about the harm caused - but, believe me, I know the arguments. And the pro-porn arguments are EVERYWHERE, utterly dominating public discourse. With this blog, I'm carving out my own tiny space in the world where women like me can be heard and feel safe.

Teal Heart Award for Victims of Sexual Violence

It's like the "purple heart" award, but for those of us injured in the the war on women

Oh, my New Orleans

Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under a lava flood of taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become only a study for archaeologists. ...But it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes, than to own the whole state of Ohio.--Lafcadio Hearn, 1879

"Men who want to support women in our struggle for freedom and justice should understand that it is not terrifically important to us that they learn to cry; it is important to us that they stop the crimes of violence against us."---Andrea Dworkin

I'm Not a Feminist But...

I'm not a feminist but...I appreciate the right to help choose my government representatives.I enjoy the option of wearing pants or shorts if I want.I'm pleased that I was allowed to read and write.It can be very convenient to control how many babies I want to have.It's awfully useful to be able to open a bank account and own property in my own name.I like knowing that my husband or boyfriend can not legally beat me and that my husband can not legally rape me.It's really swell to keep the money that I earn.Why aren't you a feminist again???

On Liberal Men

“For the last 30 years and more, I have watched liberals in America…try to repackage pornography and prostitution as a hip and groovy thing, a liberating thing, something novel and progressive and good for us all, men and women alike. Allegedly Leftist, Progressive men declare their loyalty (both as customers and partisans) to one of the biggest and most exploitative sweatshop industries of them all. Men who would not be caught dead wearing Reeboks or Nikes, or drinking Starbucks coffee, can still kid themselves into thinking Larry Flynt is some kind of People's Hero.”--D.A. Clarke in "Not For Sale"

the real Mardi Gras

Judy Chicago's Merger Poem

And then all that has divided us will mergeAnd then compassion will be wedded to powerAnd then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkindAnd then both men and women will be gentleAnd then both women and men will be strongAnd then no person will be subject to another's willAnd then all will be rich and free and variedAnd then the greed of some will give way to the needs of manyAnd then all will share equally in the Earth's abundanceAnd then all will care for the sick and the weak and the oldAnd then all will nourish the youngAnd then will cherish life's creaturesAnd then all will live in harmony with one another and the EarthAnd then everywhere will be called Eden once again.